1. Field of the Invention
Macerating toilet systems, which may be operated at a location below gravity drain piping, and which may also be installed without requiring connection to a drain pipe that is located below the surface upon which such a system is disposed.
2. Description of Related Art
Maceration, in sewage treatment, is the use of a machine that reduces solids to small pieces in order to deal with tissue paper, excrement, rags and other solid waste. Macerating toilets use a grinding or blending mechanism to reduce human waste to a slurry, which can then be moved by pumping. Such a toilet is useful in situations where the desired location of the toilet is below the location of gravity drain piping in a building, thus requiring the effluent from the toilet to be pumped upwardly to reach the discharge location of sewage piping from the building. Such a toilet is also useful because it may be configured so as to discharge laterally from its base, rather than from a discharge opening on the bottom of a base. This enables the toilet to be simply bolted in place to a supporting surface, and the water supply and effluent connections to be made to it, rather than breaking into the structure beneath the supporting surface to enable discharge from the toilet out its bottom. In circumstances where the installation of the toilet is “after the fact,” and installation is desired that was otherwise unplanned, such as on a concrete basement floor (which may be reinforced with rebar), a toilet with a lateral discharge that can be connected directly to discharge piping is especially advantageous. It obviates the need to disrupt the floor or place the toilet upon a raised pedestal, which would otherwise be needed for a bottom discharge toilet. Breaking into a concrete floor is obviously difficult, and placing a toilet on a pedestal may be undesirable, such as if there is limited overhead clearance.
In circumstances requiring a horizontal or upward effluent discharge, a macerating toilet is required. This is because in both cases (or the combination of them), the effluent from the toilet must be pumped at least horizontally, and also possibly upwardly. However, such effluent contains tissue paper and excrement, and may also contain other solid waste such as rags, cigarette butts, sanitary napkins, and even unintended articles such as socks or other objects flushed down by inquisitive children.
In order for the effluent from the toilet to be pumped horizontally and/or upwardly, these articles must be ground completely into a liquid slurry that a pump can handle without jamming, breaking, or clogging. Thus a macerating apparatus is needed, either as a separate device upstream from the pump, or integrally provided as a part of the pump at the inlet thereof.
Toilets with a lateral discharge into a nearby enclosure are known. U.S. Pat. No. 7,203,976 to Weller, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a floor level pumping system that is non-disruptive to the existing flooring and including a conventional rear outlet toilet. The system comprises a floor level tank for receiving waste and fluid from the outlet of the toilet including a tank chamber containing a designated area with a sensing system which activates a discharge pump when the level or quantity of the waste and fluid within the tank chamber reaches a predetermined level. The chamber further includes one or more baffles extending upwardly from a floor of the tank chamber, at least partially segregating the designated area from the remaining area of the tank chamber, and a discharge pump for pumping waste from the floor level tank out through a discharge pipe.
The placement of an enclosure with a macerator and a pump at the discharge of a toilet results in certain problems that are not otherwise present with a typical conventional bottom-discharge toilet. Some of these problems have not been solved by existing macerating toilet systems.
One problem is that because a macerating toilet with a pump and macerator device is more complex than a conventional bottom-discharge toilet, it requires more maintenance. Cutters on the macerator become worn and dull, and must be periodically replaced. The macerator system may have level and/or flow sensors which may become fouled and require cleaning or replacement. In a circumstance where a non-grindable solid object is flushed into the macerator, such as a small toy, it will jam the macerator. There is no alternative other than to access the macerator and remove the object. In all cases, because of the sewage present, accessing such components is an unsanitary and unpleasant task. In a typical prior art macerating apparatus, an entire top cover must be removed from the macerator tank to access the internal components. Piping connections must be dismantled from the pump contained in the tank, and level switches and/or other electrical sensing and control equipment must be disconnected and/or removed. All of this must be done in the presence of unsavory contents within the tank.
A second problem is that when certain level and/or flow sensors become fouled, they may provide a false signal such as a high level alarm. Even though the macerating unit and pump are in working order, the false alarm causes the entire toilet system to become inoperable such that it cannot be used. There are no provisions to communicate sensor condition to a user, while temporarily overriding the sensor output and maintaining operability of the toilet.
There is therefore a need for a macerating toilet that operates in a manner that avoids the need for maintenance to the greatest extent possible; but when maintenance is needed, which also enables such maintenance in as simple and sanitary a manner as possible.